1. Copy and Paste Plagiarism
Any time you lift a sentence or significant
phrase intact from a source, you must use quotation marks and reference
the source.
2. Word
Switch Plagiarism
If you take a sentence from a source and
change around a few words, it is still plagiarism. If you want to quote
a sentence, then you need to put it in quotation marks and cite the
author and article. But quoting Source articles should only be done if
what the quote says is particularly useful in the point you are trying
to make in what you are writing. In many cases, a quotation would not
really be useful. The person who plagiarizes is sometimes just too lazy
to synthesize the ideas expressed in the Source article.
3. Metaphor
Plagiarism
Metaphors are used either to make an idea
clearer or give the reader an analogy that touches the senses or
emotions better than a plain description of the object or process.
Metaphors, then, are an important part of an author's creative style. If
you cannot come up with your own metaphor to illustrate an important
idea, then use the metaphor in the Source Article, but give the author
credit for it.
4. Idea
Plagiarism
If the author of the source article
expresses a creative idea or suggests a solution to a problem, the idea
or solution must be clearly attributed to the author. A WORD ABOUT "COMMON KNOWLEDGE" Students seem to
have a hard time distinguishing author's ideas and/or solutions from common knowledge, or
public domain information. Common knowledge or public domain is any idea or
solution which people in the field accept as general knowledge.
For example, what a black hole is and how it is defined is general
knowledge. You do not need to reference a general description of a black
hole. The escape velocity of earth is also general knowledge and needs
no reference. The distance to the center of the Galaxy is also general
knowledge. However, a new idea about how to look for black holes or a
new solution to a physics problem needs to be attributed to the authors.
If you don't know what is accepted as public domain in a particular
field, ASK.
5. Reasoning Style/Organization Plagiarism
When you follow a Source Article
sentence-by-sentence or paragraph-by-paragraph, it is plagiarism, even
though none of your sentences are exactly like those in the Source
article or even in the same order. What you are copying in this case is
the author's reasoning style.
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